Multiple Stores - Single PayPal Account - Multiple Bank Accounts?

[Dave224]

I would like to set up multiple stores linked to a single PayPal Account and have money from orders from each store linked to separate bank accounts. There are numerous articles in the forum on the first part - linking multiple stores to a single PayPal account, but can that single PayPal account be linked to multiple bank accounts so that each store owner can transfer their money to their own bank account without seeing the other store owners money and orders? I would like to keep each store owner's money separate and hidden from other store owners. I understand that payPal insists on only one PayPal account per taxid, but can that account be linked to multiple but separate bank accounts and can PayPal, with help from Zen Cart, keep the proceeds from each store separate? If this is not possible with PayPal Express, can other credit card gateways handle what I need?

Thanks in advance.

Dave

[stevesh]

In short. no. As I understand it, any particular Paypal account can only be linked to one bank account. It's a Paypal thing, and has nothing really to do with Zencart. I don't know about other processors, but I doubt if any will let you do that.

You'll need a separate Paypal account for each store.

[DrByte]

Well, a PayPal account CAN be linked to multiple bank accounts, provided they belong to the person on the PayPal account.
And, further, anyone with login access to that payPal account can withdraw any amount of money to/from all bank accounts associated with it.

So, from a security and tax perspective, stevesh is correct that your stores really need separate PayPal accounts.

Same goes with any credit card gateway as well.


It's really not clear why you think you need one single paypal account when you're using multiple different businesses and different bank accounts. I can't believe that any business owner would want anyone else to have unrestricted access to their bank for any reason, especially when there's no need to do so.

[Dave224]

Thank you for your replies stevesh and Dr. Byte. Let me explain. I built an e-commerce store using Zen Cart for a non-profit organization which sells products. It's working perfectly and saves the volunteer store manager lots of time. The store manager opened a PayPal business account and set up a link to a bank. So money in the PayPal account is periodically transferred to his bank account. The organization wants to expand by collecting donations, membership fees and potentially offering downloadable products with each new area managed by a different person. Obviously, a single Zen Cart store could handle the mailable products, donations, membership fees and downloadable products, but it would require the store manager to separate funds for each of the four areas and disburse proceeds to the other three persons. The organization does not want to place that additional burden on the store manager so separate stores linked to the same organization PayPal account seems to satisfy our needs if PayPal allowed links to multiple banks accessible to each manager, and transactions from different stores were hidden from each other on PayPal. The transactions from each store would obviously be separated as confirmed in Dr. Byte's posts on multiple stores with a single PayPal account. My understanding is that the organization can not have multiple PayPal accounts as all "stores" would have the same taxid and name.

So it appears I can't set this up the way I would like as PayPal requires linked bank accounts to be owned by the same person who "owns" the PayPal account (which was new information for me), and also because the PayPal transactions are likely all combined on statements, that is, they would not be separated. But would the PayPal transactions at least identify the store they came from to the managers? I realize the organization is the same, but is there another identifier that could be used to identify the store?

It appears the best solution for us is to have one store, identify another volunteer who would own the PayPal account, analyze the transactions, and disburse the correct funds to the appropriate manager. Ugh! Any other solutions?

Thanks again,

Dave

[DrByte]

and transactions from different stores were hidden from each other on PayPal.

They can't be hidden from each other within PayPal.

it appears I can't set this up the way I would like as PayPal requires linked bank accounts to be owned by the same person who "owns" the PayPal account (which was new information for me)

Feel free to contact PayPal to get their official stance on this. But, I can't see how another organization would want to let their bank account be linked to your PayPal account, since you could not only send money to their account that way but also TAKE money from their account ... and that's the bigger problem.

and also because the PayPal transactions are likely all combined on statements

There aren't really any "statements". There is the overall "account history", which includes everything.

But would the PayPal transactions at least identify the store they came from to the managers? I realize the organization is the same, but is there another identifier that could be used to identify the store?

To some degree, yes. But it's based on the store name, as defined in your Zen Cart's Admin->Configuration->My Store->Store Name field.

It appears the best solution for us is to have one store, identify another volunteer who would own the PayPal account, analyze the transactions, and disburse the correct funds to the appropriate manager.

Yes, that is probably the most efficient approach.
If those other organizations had their own PayPal accounts, you could push the funds to their PayPal accounts for them, and then they could pull the funds down into their own bank account.

Also worth noting: if they're properly-registered non-profit organizations then they can apply to PayPal for heavily-reduced fee structures. Detailed information for this available on www.paypal.com